INTEGRATED SPATIAL INFORMATION SYSTEM ON SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY 
IN NORTHEAST THAILAND 
r I a.* ; * * Y . 
Y. Nagata *', W. Songsiri °, S. Vallibhotama ° 
? Graduate School for Creative Cities, Osaka City University, 3-3-138 Sugimoto, Sumiyoshi, Osaka 558-8585, Japan — 
nagata@media.osaka-cu.ac.jp 
D Lek-Prapai Viriyapant Foundation, 397 Phra Sumen, Bawon Niwet, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok 10200, Thailand 
KEY WORDS: Archaeology, Human Settlement, Integration, Web-based, Analog, Temporal 
ABSTRACT: 
We have been developing a GIS-based information system on social archaeology in Northeast Thailand since 2000, and^we opened 
the contents to the public through a web page in early 2003 as a result of the first stage of our activity. Our system, the EcoNETVIS, 
is comprised of legacy information, such as paper-based topographic maps, aerial photographs of the 1950s, scenic photographs, and 
academic descriptions. They are mostly from the lifetime research results of Srisakra Vallibhotama, since our activity started with 
the aim of archiving and conserving his academic materials. 
To archive them properly was an urgent issue, as much of his 
unpublished knowledge and related materials would otherwise eventually become useless. Practical collaboration was needed to 
work out an effective solution. Our collaborative activity moved up to the next stage after two of us from the fields of social 
archaeology strongly recognized the efficiency of developing the spatial information system and its influence in academic and 
educational activities. It is, of course, very time-consuming to construct an exhaustive database that integrates information on social 
archaeology with geo-references, since data must be processed manually. The spatial resolution of our system would be much 
coarser than that of remote sensing. Nevertheless, the two fields can be linked together by use of geo-references, and close overlay 
will provide fresh viewpoints for social and human scientists. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Social and human scientists have created rich academic 
descriptions of the past with fragmentary images, such as aerial 
photographs, sketches, and scenic photographs, but without 
accurate geo-references. Many senior scientists in these fields, 
especially leading scientists, are not sufficiently familiar with 
rapidly improving information technology, and the major 
medium through which they generally publish their academic 
findings is print. 
Thus, their published findings are accessible to junior scientists 
and the public, but other, unpublished findings and related 
materials for study remain fragmentary and without a universal 
reference. The value of these materials can be maintained only 
by the scientist himself, and they will eventually become useless, 
regardless of their importance or researchers’ passion. This 
represents an immeasurable loss to society. There is thus an 
urgent need to help assemble the lifetime research results and 
sometimes fragmentary findings of social scientists. 
A sense of crisis motivated us to start our present project, which 
aims to develop an integrated spatial information system on 
social archaeology in Northeast Thailand. Academic findings 
and related materials of Srisakra Vallibhotama are the major 
contents of the system. 
2. ECONETVIS 
2.1 Background 
Srisakra's academic activity covers the whole of Thailand and 
extends to neighboring countries. But we had to narrow our 
target area down to smaller region to develop a practical system 
for both users and collaborators. On the other hand, Nagata has 
been developing a spatial information system on rural socio- 
economy, the NETVIS, which covers the whole of Northeast 
430 
Thailand (Nagata, 1996). Thus, we started our collaboration 
with the first priority of concentrating on Northeast Thailand 
(Nagata ef al., 2002). Our project for the Northeast Thailand 
Village Information System: Ecohistory is abbreviated as 
EcoNETVIS. 
2.2 Materials 
The major materials we have been integrating into the spatial 
information system are aerial photographs, topographic maps, 
scenic photographs, and academic descriptions. Simply listing 
these major contents may suggest that integrating these 
materials is an activity without hardship. But compared with 
the state-of-the-art satellite imagery, these are quite imprecise, 
since accurate geo-references are included only in topographic 
maps. It is very time-consuming to check the geo-references of 
each entry. 
2.2.1 Topographic Maps: The base maps of our system are 
topographic maps drawn on a scale of 1 to 50:000. Several 
series are available from different editorial years, of which the 
series of the 1950s is particularly important. These reveal many 
features of rural environments in the days before the rapid 
modernization of rural areas began. Some maps from Srisakra’s 
collection include more exclusive information, as he marked 
many study sites during his research activities. 
As of April 2004, about 70 maps of the 1950s, which cover 
about 20 percent of the region, and about 240 maps of the 
1980s or later, which cover about 90 percent of the region, are 
incorporated digitally into the system. The horizontal datum of 
these maps is based on the Indian Datum 1960. 
Internat 
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